The present invention relates to a system for forming, in a plane, a wiring harness comprising a plurality of conductors or cables each of which must follow a predetermined path.
The invention applies more particularly, although not exclusively, to the formation of wiring harnesses for aircraft, and particularly helicopters, in which said harnesses, connecting together the numerous pieces of electric and electronic equipment required for piloting said aircraft and for carrying out the different missions with which they are entrusted, are very complex and varied.
Before installing said wiring harnesses, for example in an aircraft which they are to equip, it is necessary to shape said harnesses, in accordance with the internal arrangement of the aircraft, on long tables (up to ten meters in length), each cable or conductor extending on the table between specific lead-in and lead-out positions, while following a predetermined path.
At the present time, the path of the different conductors forming the wiring harness are represented graphically on a sheet of paper disposed on the table, under a transparent plate having a plurality of holes for receiving guide pins for provisionally holding the conductors in position along their path.
For each conductor to be positioned, the operator must first of all identify it then, with technical documentation, seek among the plurality of paths represented the one which corresponds to the conductor which he has just identified. The operator may then place the conductor along the outline of its path and hold it there by means of guide pins disposed by the operator at appropriate positions of the path. The operator must of course then begin the same set of operations again for each conductor of the harness.
Such work is obviously fastidious and errors are practically inevitable considering, on the one hand, the length of the tables and, on the other, the fact that the formation of such wiring harnesses may use several hundred conductors. Even if a "layout" of the harness is represented on the table, the operator is in fact confronted with a veritable "jumble" of tangled conductors which are difficult to straighten out.